


wild heart, half-tamed

by moth_writes



Category: Carmilla - J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:34:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29483058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moth_writes/pseuds/moth_writes
Summary: Laura writes about the first time Carmilla let her touch her hair, and reflects on how she lives now.
Relationships: Carmilla/Laura (Carmilla)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	wild heart, half-tamed

**Author's Note:**

> hi. look, i haven't even finished the book yet, i'm two hours into the audiobook. i know it ends badly, i'm just pretending they left and live in happy lesbian vampire land.
> 
> i did my best to copy the book's writing style, but i'm not sure how well that transferred. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> title is based off that quote. you know the one.

I must confess this: while my days spent laying in the sun with Carmilla at my side caused me some great and strange unnerve, I found a sort of comfort in it.

I tell you now, as a far-late addendum to my script-indeed, nearly forty years later-as I have only thus gained the courage to share. I have, in the past, referred briefly to such days in describing her appearance.

I remember quite clearly the first time I had such fortune as to touch Carmilla’s hair. It had been a nice day; quite sunny, with rain enough to forestall any visits expected or otherwise. I took comfort in those days, knowing well that nothing unfamiliar would encroach upon us.

Carmilla, laying languidly as she often is in my memory, had been telling a simple story. Nothing personal, I assume, as it contained elements far too fantastical even for what was known to me. Great scaled beasts that breathed fire, her tales of dragons, and the knight who rode to slay them bravely.

It was noontime, or so I recall sometime close to it, though the sun’s stifled rays lead to a later impression. Carmilla, pausing her tale, sat slowly in my bed. She often drew me down into it, holding my face held between her small hands and gazing with perfect dark eyes. I let her, often, ignoring the unset it caused to flutter in my belly. 

She had run her thumb, of which the pad was rougher than mine, over the crest of my cheek for another time when she sat suddenly in a far quicker motion than I was accustomed to seeing.

“Oh, this hair,” she’d exclaimed, quite out of breath. “I do so love it, but it does drive me quite mad at times.” 

It was the first I’d heard her speak of her hair, which she generally left loose, and I am near ashamed to say it left me stunned for a moment. I had harbored secret fantasies of pushing my fingers through it and feeling the doubtlessly-lovely weight of it, but I had never gained the courage to do more than push it behind her ear when she laid kisses across my neck and face.

“I might hope to braid it for you,” I offered, and my voice near shook with excitement. I continued quickly, hoping to disavow any notion of fanciful updos or competent proceedings. “I haven’t much experience, I’m afraid, with so few around to practice on.”

Carmilla turned a beaming smile on me, daring to rival and thus besting the sun’s best days. “Oh, my dear, would you? I must confess I have thought of it often enough, and even your worst attempt would please me greatly.”

And it was so I found myself, quite disbelievingly, with my hands buried in her hair while she rested her head on my chest. My first attempt was really very terrible, and it was with great fortune that Carmilla’s hair never seemed to hold any knots or tangles; lest it would have been a sight to rival a nesting bird’s best work when I finished.

The sun had well set by the time I had satisfied my fixation enough to stop, and the end result I was, at the time, fairly proud of. A very messy braid, mostly slipping out, framed her lovely face and added quite something to her. Carmilla had been sat very still with her face buried in the crook of my shoulder-though she had often shifted to press her ear to my chest, as if to listen to my heartbeat-and I had almost thought her asleep.

She wasn’t, though, and the smile she turned on me was languorous and pleased, like a cat who had gotten her way quite easily. I cannot say this didn’t please me to some great measure, as I often, in those days, delighted in her happiness as she did mine.

“How lovely,” she’s exclaimed, though I would call my handiwork quite far from it. “I do so love your hands, dear heart, and the skill you hold in them. You cradle my heart, there, as I have entrusted it to you.”

I couldn’t find it within myself to resist her charm, and so I said, half-foolishly, “As you have mine.”

She beamed, then, with her eyes shining, and kissed me. I let her gladly, though it always made my belly flutter oddly to feel her lips on my skin.

Carmilla was still wearing my lopsided braid that night when she left for her own room, departing as she always did with a kiss pressed warmly to my cheek. 

I could not help but feel brushing through my own hair was unsatisfactory, somehow, and it only became more insistent the longer Carmilla allowed me to attend to hers.

I sit now, at my desk, with her standing behind me. She has been occupying herself playing with my hair, much as I did hers, and reading over my shoulder. Indeed, many of these details had slipped from me. I am sure Carmilla’s additions are obvious, as her way of speaking carries, to me, clearly through.

I will, now, end this addendum. It is sure to become lost among the many others I have written over the years since we fled, though of this I cannot say I mind. I have my memories of Carmilla intact, and we add to that ever-growing number day-by-day.

I will, now, settle into the bath Carmilla has had our servant draw for us and we will spend our night much as we have these forty years past: in laughter and love realized. In truth and blood shed freely.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
